The Money Saving Mom's Budget by Crystal Paine was written to help you slash your spending, pay down your debt, streamline your life, and save thousands a year. Crystal is a blogger over at Money Saving Mom and I've enjoyed her posts and tips on saving money. So I was really excited to get a chance to read and review her new book that just came out on January 10th.

The Money Saving Mom's Budget is an easy to read book with budgeting advice and ideas that are simple, helpful, and creative. My favorite part is that the book doesn't just tell you how to save money. It also provides advice on changing other circumstances or habits that can get in the way of your money-saving goals.

Chapter Two is called "Are the Chaos and Clutter in Your Life Keeping You from Financial Success?" I can speak from experience that when my house is messy and disorganized, my life feels more chaotic and my bills and budget take a backseat. Not only that, but when you have too much clutter, you don't always know what you have (even in the fridge or pantry) and often end up buying more because you didn't know you already had that item! This chapter inspired me to deal with cleaning and reorganizing my house before I even began to look into getting my finances in order. It also gave helpful tips on how to efficiently and quickly tackle the clutter. I cleaned out my closets, rearranged my TV room, and reorganized the whole house, plus I gave several bags and boxes of stuff I no longer need or use to a local thrift store! I was able to do this all in one weekend and it was very empowering!

The Money Saving Mom's Budget offers simple and effective advice for creating - and sticking to - a budget, reaching financial goals, saving for the future, and getting out of debt. There are tools in the back of the book (charts, lists, worksheets) that can be filled out to help in your budgeting goals. Crystal also offers creative ideas to save money including not only couponing but also things like making homemade cleaners, finding deals on vacations and entertainment, buying in bulk, and taking advantage of free or cheap health tools instead of a gym membership. Plus you'll find some great ideas on making extra money too, like how to get started with freelance work or odd jobs.

The last chapter of the book is about choosing contentment in your life. I really appreciate that Crystal points out that although budgeting and saving money is important, it's also important to appreciate what you already have and to be grateful for everything, whether you have $100 or $100,000. Here is an excerpt that I really enjoyed that applies to everything in life:

"Contentment is a state of the heart, unaffected by outward circumstances. Contentment is a choice. You can choose to be miserable in a situation or you canchoose to bloom where you are planted."